After spending over a week trying to fix my sis's dell and reading, reading, reading, I am exhausted and hope I can find some help here. I want to list step by step what I have done so it is covered. The machine couldn't get into windows so I finally discovered how to boot from the cd drive (completely new to me). I reinstalled windows following complete instruction from dell' guides and help from the boards. Reinstall was long but looked to have worked. I then had to learn that I needed to install the chipset and all the drivers one by one and in order so that is done. The computer is running very slowly so I know there is something still wrong or didn't work as I had expected after reinstall. Next, I followed instructions on restoring from MBR but was unsucessful and wasn't a canidate. Next I found information on doing a diagnostis test. The test can not complete and I recieve the following error code:

 

Error code- 0700:0120

   System Error!

      msg: SYSTEM_ERROR \ Illegal attempt to disable intellch SMI without restoring original values first.

 

I have no clue what this code is telling me and I have search dells sight up and down with no avail. I hope someone out there can help me figure out what I am doing wrong or where I went wrong.

 

 

Dott

 

P.S. I don't want to leave out the fact that after reinstalling windows, Some of windows is missing like the Support and Help so that has been no use to me. I installed my aol software to get on line with the dell but when I try to sign on the modem doesn't dial out but the modem test have said the modem is working properly. The dell is a dell dimension 2400.